Terror plot to nuke NY revealed

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NY Post 3/4/02

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TERROR ‘PLOT' TO NUKE N.Y. REVEALED

By MEGAN TURNER

Intelligence about a terrorist plan to smuggle a massive nuclear bomb into New York put U.S. officials on high alert last fall - but the threat was kept secret so New Yorkers wouldn't panic.

Even former Mayor Rudy Giuliani says he was never told about the alarming threat, he reveals in this week's Time magazine.

In October, an intelligence alert went out to a small number of government agencies that terrorists were thought to have obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal and planned to s muggle it into New York City, Time reports.

Detonated in lower Manhattan, a bomb that size would kill some 100,000 people, irradiate 700,000 more and flatten everything within a half-mile.

Fearing a scenario even more horrific than the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorist investigators went on their highest state of alert.

"It was brutal," a U.S. official tells Time.

The White House's Counterterrorism Security Group, part of the National Security Council, kept the suspected nuke plot a secret so as not to create a panic, according to Time.

Although the information came from an agent who intelligence officials believed was of "undetermined" reliability, the claim jibed with a report from a Russian general who believed his forces were missing a 10-kiloton nuke.

In the end, the investigators concluded that the information from the agent, code-named Dragonfire, was false.

But, Time notes, they had made a chilling realization: If terrorists did manage to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the city, there was almost nothing anyone could do about it.

Counterterrorism experts and government officials interviewed by Time said that there is bound to be another attack on U.S. soil.

"It's going to be worse, and a lot of people are going to die," said one U.S. counterterrorism official. "I don't think there's a damn thing we're going to be able to do about it."

Thousands of al Qaeda terrorists have survived the U.S. military assault in Afghanistan and are starting to regroup.

Pentagon strategists told Time that even with al Qaeda's ranks scattered and its leaders on the run, operatives around the world are primed and preparing to strike again.

With no adequate defense against threats such as mass contamination of the nation's food supply or nuclear attacks on U.S. cities, the Bush administration is bracing for another disaster.

"We're as vulnerable today as we were on 9/10 or 9/12," presidential counselor Karen Hughes tells Time. "We just know more."



-- (Roland@hatemail.com), March 04, 2002

Answers

In the meantime, the detained Al Qaedas at X-Ray went on a hunger strike because the meanie Americans wouldn't let them wear their turbans.

-- (Roland@hatemail.com), March 04, 2002.

ROTFL! This is transparent agiprop-disinformation planted by scum sucking Repugs in a desperate effort to keep the war-fever alive.

Reparations for Al Qaeda NOW!

-- (LOL@your.pitiful paranoia), March 04, 2002.


Is the Democratic Party really considering changing their name to the American Taliban Party?

-- (Cherri's@little.friend), March 04, 2002.

If America would address the root causes of Muslim discontent, there would be no terrorism.

The root cause is that Americans are Kaffirs.

-- (John bin Walker-Lindh@?.?), March 05, 2002.


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